Determination of chlorophyll a and total phosphorus abundance in organic manured fish ponds

An experiment was conducted for 6 weeks (between August and September 2010) with 4treatments (T1: poultry manure, T2: cattle manure, T3: poultry and cattle manure and T4: control-nomanure) assigned to 8 concrete ponds at random to determine chlorophyll a and total phosphorusabundance in organic manured fish ponds. Results of the study suggest that T1, T2, and T3 had an effecton chlorophyll a and total phosphorus abundance in organic manured ponds. The final mean average forchlorophyll a ranged from 0.0105mg/m3 to 0.045mg/m3 and that of total phosphorus ranged from0.024mg/50mL to 0.522mg/50mL. Chlorophyll a and phosphorus were positively correlated with acoefficient of 0.92 and it was significant (p ≤ 0.05). However, weekly performance of chlorophyll a andtotal phosphorus was higher in T3 compared to other treatments. The treatments also showeddifferences in the number of plankton species available. Phytoplankton species in T3 increased from 888in week three to 933 in week six. However, the zooplankton species reduced from 10 in week three to 4in week six compared to other treatments. These results indicate that animal manure varied ininfluencing the production of chlorophyll a, planktons and phosphorus. The variation may be attributed tofeed nutritive value of the animals to which they were fed. Farmers should therefore be encouraged touse a combination of poultry and cattle manure to obtain maximum benefits in increasing chlorophyll aand total phosphorus.